Consider the Tulip Bulb

Spring is my least favorite season. I spend much of my life being cold so by the time I've made it through February and March, I'm left with only a meager patience for capricious April. To help me keep my spirits up while I wait for heat to return, I picked up the practice of planting bulbs. It has turned out to be a simple and rewarding habit, a gift that I give to my future self every fall. It has made the turn from winter to spring more manageable, even a bit enchanting, as I imagine the bulbs buried beneath snow and soil, frozen in the ground, ready to receive the barest warmth, and grow.

Imaging my hidden bulbs also helps me remember a book study conversation with a former student. We were reading a section of A Wrinkle In Time through the lens of "root" and over the course of our discussion we got talking about bulbs since they seemed to be kindred underground things. We mused together whether the bulb is, in fact, the thing itself. The bulb is the tulip. The flower is just something the bulb does every once in a while.

So now, I not only plant bulbs as a gift of early color, but also as a gift to help me remember that flowers are things that only happen every once in a while. The bulb is the actual thing. Sometimes it wanes, with thin, brittle, scraggly leaves. Sometimes it is frozen and hidden. Sometimes it waxes, verdant and lush against all odds. 

During my least favorite season I like to remember that I am more like a bulb than a flower. I am hearty and dynamic and mostly out of sight.